5.1: Contagion, Pandemic History, and Literature

Matt Price

Today

  • discuss disease
  • thoughts about assignment
  • intor to Omeka (final assignment framework)

The Long Arc of Disease

  • in 2019, we lived in a relatively epidemic-free moment in human history
  • not anymore!
  • what can we learn from the broad sweep of human encounters with widespread infections disease?

Some moments in Pandemic History

  • actual “plague”: 3 pandemics: “Justinian” (6th C CE), “Black Death” (1346-~1700), “Modern Plague” (mid-c.19-~1959)
  • Syphilis (~1500-early c.20)
  • Cholera: early c.19-present
  • AIDS: late c.20-present
  • Ebola: 2014-present

(many others)

Disease in and as culture

  • diseases have many cultural effects
  • also, we understand disease in culturally-specific ways
  • “dialectical” (or “feedback”) relationships
  • literature as reflection and generator of understanding

Breakout groups: how to do this

  • quickly assign someone as record keeper. This person will report back in real time *in Slack, where everyone ca see the conversation
  • meanwhile, I will float around and listen in – not to eavesdrop, but to be helpful

5.2 Omeka

Getting Started with my local Omeka installation

Omeka!

  • “Wordpress for Museums”
  • Designed especially for projects with strict metadata requirements, e.g.: archives of books, images, etc
  • Free to Use
  • Open Source (GPL 3)
  • Widely used in libraries & classrooms

omeka-logo.png

Items and Collections

Exhibits

  • Through its Exhibit plugin, Omeka lets users tell stories with their collections.
  • Users can arrange items from their collections into multimedia essays, using the “Lego bricks“ of the archive to tell stories and make arguments.

Omeka Building Blocks

Items
individual pieces of content
Metadata
information about an item – “Dublin Core” Standard
Collections
groups of items; each item is in exactly one collection
Exhibits
narratives woven around items.

Heroes and Villains: SilverAge Comics

  • Heroes and Villains is a digital archive of Silver Age superhero comic books from J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections. Credits: Marc Bess, J. Murrey Atkins Library Digital Scholarship Lab, UNC Charlotte.

Items

  • Items are the building blocks of Omeka sites. They always have metadata (Title, Description, Sourc,e Date, etc.) and often have digital files attached (images, documents, etc.)

Metadata

  • Structured data about data
  • Omeka uses Dublin Core, which is a widely-used international standard

Collections

  • logical/hierarchical groupings of items (like “folders” in your computer desktop)
  • Each item can be in only one collection

Exhibits

  • narratives that tell the story of some items & explain their significance. It’s important to highlight exhibits in an omeka site, since Omeka can be hard to navigate without them.

Exhibits

Add an Item

  • got to “dashboard” and select “Items”
  • select “Add an Item”

Add an Item: Dublin Core Metadata

  • In the Item’s fields, enter the metadata: Title, Subject, Description, etc. Before you add items to your collection, you will have figured out how the Dublin Core metadata schema applies to your particular data: consistency across your collection is key.
  • For example, for medieval manuscripts, you can list authors of the texts under Author: but what of known scribes, who may have also intervened in the text? Are they Authors or Publishers or Contributors? Pick what makes sense and apply it consistently.
  • For details on Dublin Core :
  • http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/
  • If you wish the Item to be visible on the public view of the site, check “Public“ (under “Add Item”).
  • Click “Add Item“ (green, right).

Add an item: Dublin Core Metadata

  • In this assignment, you are responsible for the following fields (and some may have to stay blank):
  • Title;
  • Description (a paragraph recording your description of the object, in your own words: 100-200 words)
  • Creator;
  • Source (can be e.g. manuscript or book or collection);
  • Publisher;
  • Date;
  • Rights (i.e. who owns copyright – language here will vary strongly depending on institution the items come from, and that is not an error on the students’ part);
  • Format material, e.g. bronze, parchment, etc.);
  • Language;
  • Coverage (place where the object is from/was made).

Add an Item: Success

  • Success: our trial item (“New Item“) was created and added to the digital collection!

Add an Image to the Item

  • Go to the Items and select the “Edit“ option under your Item

Add an Image to the Item

  • From the top horizontal row of options of the Item: select Files Choose File
  • Upload your image
  • Save changes

Collections

  • Collections are logical groupings or “folders“ of Items. An item can be in only one Collection at a time.
  • Go to Dashboard and select “Collections“
  • Select “Add a Collection“
  • Fill in the metadata elements as desired, as for Item. (Everything in Omeka has metadata: it is turtles all the way down.)

Collections

  • Collections are logical groupings or “folders“ of Items. An item can be in only one Collection at a time.
  • Go to Dashboard and select “Collections“
  • Select “Add a Collection“
  • Please use WDW235 – Your Last Name as your Collection title.

Add an Exhibit: Plan

  • The Exhibit is a narrative pathway through the collection; or, if you will, a digital essay based on the items in your collection.
  • First write the prose for your exhibit and decide what items need to appear in it.
  • To look pretty in the Exhibit, the items need to have picture or video files attached.
  • Save your prose in a separate file.
  • Put your immortal prose somewhere safe. Omeka Exhibits cannot be exported automatically: and if you ever delete yours in error, there is no getting it back.

Add an Exhibit: Structure

An Omeka Exhibit has:

  • An overview page: displays an abstract (summary) of your exhibit
  • Pages: sections of your exhibit; these display text as well as items (remember, to look pretty, the items need to have files attached)
  • In each Page: blocks
  • Pages are about content; Blocks are about layout/format

You get to decide the content and layout of your pages.

Add an Exhibit: Creation

  • Go to the Dashboard and click on Exhibits.
  • Click Add an Exhibit.

Add an Exhibit: Metadata

  • Every Exhibit has metadata.
  • Title displays as the Exhibits title.
  • Slug forms the URL.
  • Description is an abstract of the Exhibit that appears on its first page.

Add an Exhibit: Structure

  • The Exhibit consists of Pages.
  • Each Page is a section of your Exhibit.
  • To build your Exhibit, start adding Pages by clicking the Add Page green button.

Add an Exhibit: Pages

Each Page may consist of multiple blocks:

  • Text and an item block
  • A gallery of items block
  • Text block

To create a new Block, click on the desired layout. This block will be added as a section of this page. Your page can contain as many blocks as you like; you can drag them around to rearrange them.

Add an Exhibit: Blocks

  • Once you have added your narrative and selected your Items, your block will look like this:
  • To see what the Page actually looks like, select the View Public Page button (right side of browser, in line with Content).

Add an Exhibit: Overall Design

  • In your finished Exhibit, each Page will be a Section of the Narrative, illustrated with Items from your digital collection.
  • You can use and reuse items from your collection in as many Exhibits as you wish.

Building an Omeka Site: Conclusions

  • Make a project plan with deadlines. But allow for disasters.
  • Plan your exhibits (possibly on paper) well ahead of time
  • Draft and save your Item descriptions and your Exhibit content in word processing software; save this draft;
  • Paste your content from Word into Omeka.

Class Exercise: Life In Quarntine – an Omeka project?

  • imagine an open-ended assignment/project: build an omeka site about your life under quarantine
  • what does your ideal site look like?
  • what kinds of scholarly sources would you use?
  • what kinds of items?
  • now start playing in omeka…